The Influence of Bilateral Investment Treaties on Customary International Law

Article from: TDM 5 (2005), in Judge Stephen Schwebel on international investment law and investment arbitration

Introduction

My simple thesis, which I hope that this sophisticated audience will not find simplistic, is
this: Customary international law governing the treatment of foreign investment has been reshaped
to embody the principles of law found in more than two thousand concordant bilateral investment
treaties. With the conclusion of such a cascade of parallel treaties, the international community
has vaulted over the traditional divide between capital-exporting and capital-importing states
and fashioned an essentially unified law of foreign investment.
For some two hundred years, the ...